


rip current

by sassafras_tea



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, past j/c - Freeform, references to abuse and toxic relationships, toxic Jaime/Cersei
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassafras_tea/pseuds/sassafras_tea
Summary: Jaime hadn’t realized how angry he’d been his whole life. It flares up randomly; the rising tide of pure boiling rage, frustration and despair filling his chest at the most innocuous of things. He’d thought that moving away would help, and in a way it had. It had, he told himself.He breathes, low and deep, and takes a second to avoid his own gaze in the mirror. He looks up, confronted with his sister’s cool green eyes, and turns his face back down, some unnamable disgust choking him. Jaime spits a bullseye of toothpaste in the drain.He has an anger problem, that much he knows for sure. The rest? He hasn’t got a clue.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 20
Kudos: 47





	1. a dishonest man lives here

**Author's Note:**

> hi so i'm just writing this for fun; i wanted to explore Jaime's mindset and how he heals from everything. i really love JB and am hoping that i can create a version of them that feels relatable, real and relatively accurate to their core relationship in the books, even though this is a kind of hybrid modern au. i'm still figuring everything out with the story and might continue editing this as it gets put up here, so we'll see how it goes.

Jaime hadn’t realized how angry he’d been his whole life. It flares up randomly; the rising tide of pure boiling rage, frustration and despair filling his chest at the most innocuous of things. He’d thought that moving away would help, and in a way it had. It had, he told himself. 

He breathes, low and deep, and takes a second to avoid his own gaze in the mirror. He looks up, confronted with his sister’s cool green eyes, and turns his face back down, some unnamable disgust choking him. Jaime spits a bullseye of toothpaste in the drain. 

He has an anger problem, that much he knows for sure. The rest? He hasn’t got a clue. 

***

The bell above the door rings merrily, Sansa's long red ponytail swaying as she slips through the double doors to the back. Brienne leads the way, and they slide into the nearest booth. Friday nights are diner nights. A faint acoustic guitar song strains over the voices of customers chatting and the shuffle of orders coming out of the kitchen. 

“Let me guess,” Jaime drawls, dragging his index finger down the cracked plastic menu. “You’re gonna get french toast, a side of fruit salad and a tea…” He grins at her, turning the charm all the way up. 

“Actually, Lannister,” she replies, unfazed, “I need the protein, so I’m getting scrambled eggs,” she closes the menu with a decisive slap, a hint of amusement simmering behind her eyes. 

“Suit yourself, Bri. We could have split it,” he pouts, flipping a stray curl out of his eyes. Brienne snorts. 

“Your sweet tooth is going to give you a mouthful of cavities.”

Jaime hums in response, watching her while she checks her phone. Strands of her pale blond hair flutter sweetly around her face from the blast of the air conditioning, her strong fingers curling around her iPhone 5. The gentle curve of her pale eyelashes hide her eyes, her scar stretching over the curve of her cheek, whitening with time, the edges still slightly pink. My God, he muses, she even has freckles on her eyelids. 

“What?” she says warily, catching his gaze. 

“Nothing!” he raises his palms and smiles, the picture of innocence. Her eyebrows furrow, and he looks at her again, eyes wide, oozing sweetness from his pores. She’s still on guard, so he nudges her foot under the table. Her leg shifts, and she leans back in the booth. Away from him. 

He can feel her hiding behind that impenetrable wall she puts up, and Jaime’s trapped on the other side. He pushes aside the blaze of hurt lacing through him and smiles at her, tries to be gentle. 

“Bri…” He starts. 

“We should order,” she cuts him off, not unkindly, before signaling to the waitress. 

They order from a pretty brunette waitress and then wait. 

He’s terribly insecure all of a sudden, internally compiling a list of reasons why he thinks Brienne might like him. But he can’t figure it out in his mind, he feels like a first grader stuck reading aloud again, endlessly tripping over words (“But d’s and b’s look the same!” he remembers stomping his foot angrily before Tywin leveled him with an icy gold-green glare. Jaime has Cersei’s eyes just as much as Cersei has their father’s.) 

He’s angry. There couldn’t be a way Brienne liked him, because otherwise why didn’t she show it? She never touched him; she was like a skittish animal. She doesn’t like him, he’s a fucking imbecile. How could she? How could anyone but Cersei? And she didn’t even really like him all that much. Jaime pushes it down, taking a sip of his water. Fuck him, of course he has feelings for the one person who could never like him back. 

He winks at the waitress when she drops off their food and purposefully grazes her hand with his right one, something bottling up in the back of his throat. He holds his jaw tight.

Jaime doesn’t miss Brienne’s face shutting down, her finger tracing the shape of a coffee stain on the table. 

What the fuck is he doing? He doesn’t like the waitress. He doesn’t know her, and now he’s gone and ruined a perfectly nice dinner with one of his exactly two friends. 

What is wrong with him? 

Brienne takes a sip of her water, condensation beading and pooling in a ring on the faux wood grain. She stabs her eggs with intense precision, crunches on her toast with tiny, mouse-like bites. She doesn’t look at him at all. The waitress puts an extra twist in her hips as she weaves through the cramped booths, and it would be cute if Jaime liked even a single hair on her head. Brienne turns her head towards the girl, and Jaime takes a moment to admire the distinctive, crooked line of her profile. 

“She’s very pretty,” Brienne says very softly, looking down at her empty plate. She is, Jaime thinks. She is, he tells himself. 

He leaves the diner with the waitress’ number in the back pocket of his jeans, Brienne trailing behind him. 

“Jaime,” she says, the bare whisper of her voice crawling feverishly over his skin; he feels fucking insane. 

“Jaime,” she repeats louder, while he keeps walking furiously towards the car on the far end of the parking lot. 

“What?!” he snarls, exhausted with himself, the rising tide of his fury pushing, pulling. “You want to tell me how irresponsible I am?” 

Her eyes blaze, her full mouth twisting down in a grimace. Good, he thinks. For God’s sake, get mad at me!

“Seven, Jaime! I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort! I would never judge you for that! That’s not—” she reins herself in. She twists a stray thread on her sleeve, and it’s so endearing and sweet that a wave of self loathing washes over him.

“I don’t know why you do that,” she sighs. And Brienne’s looking him full in the face, the lull of her eyes reminding him of summers full of fields upon fields of cornflowers, of dandelion seeds rising on the breeze. 

“I don’t understand what’s happening to you,” she continues, finally. “Everything with Cer-“ she corrects herself. “with her is,” she pauses, thinking, “Complicated.” She inhales shakily. “I know that.” she says definitively. “But,” she continues. 

“I don’t think we should… be friends… if this is how it’s going to be,” her voice breaks wetly, and he can’t look at her, so he stares at the ground. 

He can’t blame her; he really can’t. He doesn’t want to be around him either. He loves her, his Brienne; he loves the long lines of her legs, her big, graceful hands, the strong set of her back; he can’t stand this. He looks up at her. She turns away. 

“Please—” Brienne shudders, pressing the heel of her palm into her eyes. Her huge shoulders shake. 

“Don’t look at me, Jaime, please.” 

“Brienne,” he starts, damn it, his eyes are wet. He has to fix this, fast. 

“No!” she takes a step back, breathing slowly in and out. “It’s better this way, um, I’ll walk home…” 

“I—” Jaime’s at a loss; he’d give anything to fix this. Her back’s to him already, arms folded over her broad chest, striding forward into the dark. He doesn’t watch her go. 

He sits in his car, numb, for hours. 

They didn’t start out this way. 

He didn’t start out this way.


	2. water of the womb

When Jaime first moves to Tarth, he doesn’t know what to expect. He feels a little stupid at first, doing this on a whim. 

“Typical impulsive Jaime, ” Tyrion had scoffed when he told him. 

“Although,” his brother had said, looking up from his book on Castle Black’s history, a smirk curling across his face. “Anything to get away from Her Holiness,” Tyrion’s green eye glittered. Jaime got the sense he thought this was all very funny. 

“Shut up,” Jaime retorted at the time, throwing another one of his tee shirts into the suitcase. “I thought you were going to help me pack, ass,” Jaime flung a lone athletic sock at him.

“Jaime,” Tyrion sighed, lazily sticking a bookmark in and putting the large tome aside.

“While this isn’t the most well thought out thing you’ve ever done, I still think you’re making the right decision,” and here he paused, choosing his words carefully. 

“She’s not your responsibility. ” he settled on, after some time, with all the cautious gentleness he could manage. 

“Tyrion, please- just… ” Jaime said, tucking his bag of toiletries into a side pocket. He pulled out the letter, and the edges crumpled in his fist. He tucked it back into his pocket. 

Tyrion’s mouth curled down, a furrow appearing between his brows. He turned his head towards the open window. 

“She really fucked you up. She and our father both, actually.” And he continued, a low bitter note stringing through his words. 

“And you were the favorite…” he laughed. 

“I don’t know when I’ll be back, and you want to do this now?” Jaime gritted his teeth. 

“You never apologized,” Tyrion continued calmly, as if he hadn’t heard Jaime. A breeze floated in from the window, and Jaime hoped desperately that this bitterness between them could simply dissipate. 

“Not once.” His voice shook a little. Tyrion’s hand curled into the fabric of the chair. Jaime wanted to scream. 

“For being the favorite? For Tysha?” Jaime zipped his suitcase, slammed it on the floor and pulled the handle up. 

“No!” It burst out of Tyrion’s mouth, but he took a deep breath and ran his stubby fingers over the dust on the nightside table. 

“You’re right; we’re not doing this now. We should celebrate your newly found freedom!” 

Jaime smirked. 

“Eager to get rid of me?” 

Tyrion rolled his eyes. 

“No, moron, much as you might think I am.” 

Jaime scoffed in response, dragging the suitcase towards the door. He fiddled with a loose thread unravelling at his sleeve, and wondered whether he should hug his brother, or if he should just let all of it sit between them. He inhaled sharply: 

“So, I’m off.” He held his arms out, resisting the urge to curl inward. Tyrion raised an eyebrow, then took a few decisive steps into Jaime’s arms, as Jaime leaned down. Tyrion patted Jaime’s shoulder. 

“We never were the hugging type, were we?” 

Jaime laughed.  
“No.” He replied, pulling away. 

Tyrion squinted at him, and Jaime felt as though he was on a table being x-rayed. 

“You’ll do well there,” Tyrion said decisively, patting his arm again for good measure, like a promise between brothers. Jaime pulled the note out of his pocket, crumpled and worn as it was. He traced his index finger over the painstakingly written words— he’d asked Tyrion to proofread it for him at least three times. He placed it under Cersei’s pillow on Cersei’s side of his bed: the right. 

He walked out of the bedroom, luggage in hand. Tyrion and he drove to the docks. 

Tyrion waved goodbye, leaning against the car, and Jaime watched him turn into a dot on the horizon. 

The sea carried him away, and Jaime reminded himself: 

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.


	3. good food here

He arrives on the Sapphire Isle in late afternoon, as the sun’s beams cast a warm orange glow over the sea. Jaime loves the smell of it; he loves the brine and the gulls squawking overhead while they coast along the breeze to steal a few chips from a beachgoer. 

Jaime watches the dark waves pull the ferry closer and closer to the dock, and he resists the urge to dive in and let the tide tug him back to King’s Landing. He grips the railing tighter, and focuses on the chatter of two tipsy, summer-bright students a few feet away, laughing about some expedition to the basement of their college dorm. He closes his eyes and lets sun’s gentle warmth wash over him, lets the breeze run its fingers through his hair. 

If Cersei were here, she’d want to go inside. ‘They’re imbecilic, Jaime!’ she’d spit, tossing her head of shining golden curls. She’d wrinkle her Roman nose, glowing even in her distaste.   
‘It smells like a pig died!’ she’d seethe, and order him to follow her to the air-conditioned lower deck. 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and resists the urge to drop it, letting it sink to the bottom of the ocean. 

Twenty five missed calls from <3 Queen Bee <3\. 

The Captain’s voice cuts through: 

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s 3:30pm and we’ve docked at the lovely Tarth. Please proceed in an orderly manner down the ramp, and have a nice rest of your day.” 

Jaime lingers over the block button on her contact; his thumb grazes her profile pic: a rare candid from when they were younger, Cersei only sixteen and caught in the middle of a laugh, her eyes squeezed shut. 

He blocks her number, and lets himself get lost in the crowd of passengers, as his feet touch Tarth soil. 

An ‘Anti-Cersei Travel Zone,’ he quips to himself.

*** 

Tarth feels like one of those little islands in the middle of nowhere, even with tourists poking their heads in kitsch-y, hole-in the wall shops that sell keychains and tank tops with yellow suns and moons on a rose and azure insignias. Tiny, pastel-colored vintage cars bump each other like beetles along cobbled streets. He lets himself wander, walking up and down streets packed with locals and tourists alike, families holding ice cream cones and couples in sundresses and khakis popping into antique shops selling homemade soaps and jewelry. Something sweet and salty travels on the breeze, fresh and sharp from the sea, and sweet from the fudge shop he passes by. He can’t resist the heady smell, so he ducks in. He gets a slice of chocolate fudge and a slice of cranberry (the color reminds him of bubblegum), and when he’s paying, he makes polite small-talk with the cashier. 

“First time on Tarth?” she asks, packaging up his order with wax paper, and placing it in a little white box. 

“Yeah,” Jaime replies, “I’m going to be staying here a while, I think.” 

She nods: “You should check out the tour. It’s a good way for visitors to see our best sights, get a bit of history about the island. Starts at the base of Evenfall Hall, around 9:00 tomorrow morning.” 

“Thanks,” he replies, bizarrely touched. He stuffs a fifty into the tip jar, and pays for his fudge, swinging the bag merrily as he leaves to check into a motel. 

He checks into a wooden shack of a motel; the cracked letters on the sign read ‘Sailors Haven Motel.’

His cramped room boxes in a twin sized bed and a wobbly night table with a lamp dotted with compass symbols. The bathroom towels are blue and white, and the soap in the dish is shaped like a rowboat. The wallpaper peels like rinds off of an orange near the corners of the ceiling. A school of crimson and silver fish follow the current of creases in the quilt draped over the end of the bed, and the sheets look older than he is. 

Jaime sits on the end of his bed, and unwraps his fudge, being careful to avoid ripping the wax paper. He breaks a tiny piece off the end, and eats it, rubbing the buttery pink residue on his index and thumb together. It's tart and sweet all at once, bitter and creamy. The sun sets, washing a dreamy lavender and buttercup yellow over the horizon, and he sits and eats another piece of fudge, watching the sun sink towards the horizon. He packs it all away for later, tucks it into the mini fridge under his bed, and then heads out to eat some real food. 

He walks towards the dock and stops at a run-down fish and chips place, orders calamari with ranch dip, a little container of coleslaw on the side and a slice of lemon to cut through the grease. He sits by the ocean, digs his toes in the fine white sand, and drenches his calamari in sauce. The tide inches closer and closer to his feet as he eats his meal, and Jaime squeezes lemon over everything, enjoying the citrus-y smell. 

When he’s done, he leans back, folding his hands under his head, and looks up at the sky; the stars wink at him. Suddenly, he remembers something Cersei said to him years ago. She had tugged on one of his curls, her mouth quirking up in that way when she wants something from him, and pointed up towards the black sky, at Cassiopeia. 

“Did you know, Jaime, that Cassiopeia was the most beautiful queen in the stories from across the Narrow Sea?” 

Jaime scoffed, then turned to smile at Cersei, the wind tickling his face. Cersei had been enraptured with stories of queens and princesses, growing up. She used to joke that she was the queen of the Rock, and he was her loyal knight. Jaime used to laugh, and savor the determined, proud look on Cersei’s face. Then, Jaime would ask: ‘What about Tyrion?” and Cersei would always go quiet. She would inspect her nail beds, sniff and turn away, before replying: “He’s not in it.” “In what, Cers?” Jaime would pester. “In the story, in my…” Here, Cersei would pause, then sneer, her (Jaime’s, too,) green eyes fiery. “He’s not in my story.” 

Jaime can’t catch his breath; his heart pounds; blood roars in his ears. He can’t breathe. He tries to inhale slowly, deeply. His stomach rolls traitorously; he gags. Jaime closes his eyes, tries to focus on just inhaling and exhaling, but he can’t shake her; he can’t shake Cersei’s voice in his head.

He can’t stand it, so he pulls his shirt up over his head and tosses his sandals over it to keep it from flying away in the wind, and heads to the water. Broken shells and smooth rocks dig into the bottoms of his feet, but he presses forward before diving in. The cold shocks him, burying deep into his skin; tendrils of seaweed brush his legs as he paddles. Jaime’s lungs ache, and he pushes to the surface, gasping. Surrounded by darkness, the sky and sea both velvety black above and below him, he can’t see her anywhere. Can’t hear her anywhere. There’s nothing, nothing at all, as he pushes further out towards the barely visible red and white buoy bobbing up and down. Jaime severs himself from the shore. He loses himself in the rhythmic pull of the waves, in the weightlessness of his body. 

***

Swimming back, he can almost see a man, broad chested and tall with his arms crossed, waiting by Jaime’s shirt and shoes. Jaime’s strong strokes carry him closer, and he realizes belatedly that he isn’t seeing a man at all. She’s a woman, big and muscled and lean all at once, the way that only professional boxers and stone masons and construction workers are. 

“You should be more careful,” the woman says, the breeze lifting up her slightly raspy, high pitched voice. 

“Why’s that, Gene Tunney?” Jaime smirks, ever the big mouth. She scowls at him, folding her arms even closer to her chest. Grains of sand cling to the backs of his legs, as he approaches her.

“I’m a girl.” She frowns at him, and Jaime has a little part of him that hopes that she notices he’s shirtless and wet. 

“Yeah, I can tell.” He says, sizing her up, as he reaches for his shirt. She’s even taller up close, long limbed and well muscled at once, with thin feathery hair so blond it almost looks white. The line of her nose leans just slightly left, and her lips are full enough that she looks like someone punched her in the mouth. Jaime admits to himself, in the privacy of his mind, that she’s ugly. He’d do her no favors to pretend otherwise. 

The woman looks him right in the eyes, refreshingly upfront. 

“You’re not from here, so you don’t know. A rip could pull you out and you could drown. Especially at night, you should watch yourself.” 

“I know.” Jaime says, frustrated, “I grew up on the Westerlands coastline. I know about rips.” 

The salt itches on his skin, and the breeze raises goosebumps. Jaime slips his shirt on, and the silvery light of the full moon hangs heavy over his head. A shadow passes over the woman’s face, casting her crooked nose and the line of her cheek in ink as she turns her head to the side. She looks at the sea, again, at the waves crested with foam. 

“Even if you know, still…” she said quietly. She shrugs a huge shoulder. “Better safe than sorry.” she turns back to look at him, her face unreadable, something vulnerable lurking behind her downturned mouth and her pale scrunched eyebrows. 

It’s here, with this stranger looking at him so steadily, so genuinely concerned, that Jaime notices she has the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. 

They’re a shade of blue so dark her eyes look almost black in the night, and Jaime thinks for a second that he must still be in the water. I have to come up for air he thinks. In her left eye, a ring of hazel circles her pupil, and her eyelashes are pale and long. Freckles dot her nose and cheeks sweetly, and Jaime inhales sharply, turning back to his shoes. He’s not a teenage boy anymore; he feels ridiculous, blushing over a girl’s eyes. An ugly girl, no less. Cersei would laugh herself hoarse. 

“I’ll think about that, thank you,” he clears his throat after a beat. Jaime slips his sandals on, and gathers his trash from his fish and chips. She shifts from her right foot to her left. 

“What are you doing out so late?” he asks her, walking towards the trashcan. He tosses his garbage, and drifts back towards her. 

“Just walking.” She nods at a dirt bike path winding around the beach into a thick patch of trees. Jaime nods, unsure of what to say next. He shoves a hand in his pocket, and levels a sunny smile at her. That was what his father had always said, that he could use his good looks to his advantage, that it was all about just turning the switch on and letting them drift to him like moths. Cersei used to hate it, the way he could turn it on. She told him to stop playing with his food, that girls were beneath him. Except, for her, of course. 

But she, this stranger, whoever she is, doesn’t seem to notice. She just nods. 

“Okay, well, have a nice night.” she says, rather awkwardly. She holds up a large, square-palmed hand in a shy half-wave, and heads to the path. 

“You too,” he calls after her, rather gracelessly. 

The whole walk back to the motel, Jaime thinks about the woman’s eyes, how big and blue they were, and how he forgot to even ask her name.


	4. maybe i'd be happy then on blue bayou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! just a heads up, this chapter has Jaime essentially having an anxiety attack towards the end as well as refs to Jaime having issues w/ food related to being w/ Cersei etc. the title is, of course, from blue bayou by roy orbison. i know i've been gone quite a while, but i'm glad to be back!

The next morning, Jaime wakes up early, swinging his arms above his head. He squints at the sun glaring through the window, and heads to the bathroom. He forgoes turning the light on, and grapples awkwardly in the dark for his recently-unpacked toothbrush, finally grasping the cup and dumping it out in his hand. He feels for the toothpaste, and squeezes a little out onto the brush. A breeze shivers through his room, knocking the door open. Light bursts through the space. Jaime immediately turns around, his back to the mirror. His heart pounds, and he focuses on the bristles moving against his teeth, on the taste of mint. 

He should buy a cover for the mirror when he’s out.

He spits into the sink with his head down and hopes the Mother can’t see how far he’s fallen. 

Jaime throws on some clothes and heads out with only his essentials: his phone and headphones for audiobooks or calls from Tyrion and his wallet. 

He grabs breakfast from a stand selling homemade crepes a couple streets away from Sailor’s Haven, and fills his with banana, chocolate and peanut butter, and ignores the little voice telling him that he can’t expect to stay beautiful and fit the way…. she… likes him while eating foods like that. 

He orders a tea from a coffee place and blares a pre mixed R&B playlist through his headphones as he eats. He watches a video essay on the growing prevalence of an illegal hallucinogenics trade across the Riverlands, and checks the time: 8:30. 

He leaves the coffee shop, and checks his maps app for Evenfall Hall, and discovers that it's at the west most corner of Tarth, only a few miles away. He starts walking, weaving in and out of tourists picking their way across shops. He keeps going, and he watches the shops and tourist traps start to disappear, until he comes to a gently sloped hill covered in tall grass waving in the breeze. At the top of a hill sits an old estate, a large house with a dirt driveway and a widow’s walk. Cornflowers dot the hill, haloing around clusters of dandelions, and Jaime reaches down to pick a flower. He tucks it behind his ear, closes his eyes in the sun. 

When he makes it to the house, right on time, he might add, he sees a wooden sign proclaiming it to be Evenfall after all. Jaime knocks on the door and waits. A very familiar blond head pokes out. 

“Gene Tunney?” 

Tunney narrows her eyes at him, and they look a paler shade of blue in the light of day than he remembers. She sighs, and her hand curls around the back of her neck. 

“Oh. It’s you. Are you here for the tour?” 

“I am.” Jaime replies, feeling oddly out of his depth. He shades his eyes with his hand, and squints at a garden of basil leaves, tulips and other plants off to the side of the house. 

He gestures to it. 

“Got a green thumb?” 

Tunney opens the door wider, letting Jaime get a peek at the homey, hardwood decor. 

“No,” she says. “My dad, actually. The tour starts inside.” 

Jaime steps in, and disappointingly, Tunney ducks around him and moves further into the house. The walls are splashed a very pale teal color, clashing slightly with the red and yellow afghan draped over the couch. Little pockmarked scars and dings dot the hardwood floor, and the sea breeze carries in from the open window. A full length mirror leans against the staircase, and Jaime quickly moves on into the kitchen. 

“Would you like something to drink?” she asks, scavenging through the cabinets, and moves a decorative pair of fish shaped measuring spoons out of her way. 

“I’m fine, thank you.” Jaime replies. He fiddles with the edge of his shirt, then clears his throat. 

“Are you the tour guide, by any chance?” Jaime feigns a light tone, running his thumb along the ridged scale pattern on the tablespoon. He glances at her, and her eyes dart away. 

Jaime takes a leap. 

“Nervous, Tunney?” 

She scoffs at him. She rolls her shoulders back in a kind of half-stretch, and Jaime suddenly has to reckon with the reality of the freckles on her biceps, and the tan line cutting across her collarbones. 

“In my childhood home? On the island I grew up on? No. I’m not nervous. And,” she adds, a wrinkle slicing between her eyebrows. 

“My name is Brienne.” 

“Brienne,” Jaime repeats. He strides forward, deciding to abandon his silly, fluttering heartbeat. He outstretches his hand. 

“Jaime.”

Now-Brienne eyes his hand with suspicion like he’s the Stranger come to whisk her away, but she grasps his hand nonetheless. Jaime can feel all the calluses on her flat palms; she has a strong grip, too. 

“Tour starts on the widow’s walk, up the stairs.” Brienne nods towards the stairs. A wisp of hair escapes her low ponytail and grazes her jaw; Jaime can’t help but stare. A monarch butterfly drifts in and lands near her square tipped fingers resting on the counter, opening its wings like a flower blooming. Brienne doesn’t move, and Jaime doesn’t want to move. 

The butterfly floats out the window. 

“Okay.” Jaime replies, finally. 

“I’m not the guide for it.” Brienne adds, belatedly, just before he gets to the top of the stairs. 

“Oh,” Jaime says. He shrugs, then lets a little smile curl his mouth. He hopes Brienne’s looking at him.

“Too bad.” 

*** 

The tour guide Jaime does get is a brown haired boy with a round, slightly pudgy face and doe eyes.

“Hi everyone, I’m Podrick, or Pod for short!” He chirps and smiles encouragingly at a gap toothed Dornish girl clinging to her father’s arm. Podrick himself could only be in his late teens. 

“You’ll notice,” Pod gestures to the cliffs, rough and scallop-shell textured. “That we’re currently overlooking Shipbreaker Bay.” 

Jaime leans against the railing to the left of Pod, looking down at the dark waves moving closer to the cliffside only to shyly retreat. They curl around the chips and rough edges of the cliffs, slowly wearing it away. 

“Historically, widow’s walks are more decorative than anything, although even native-born Tarth residents say that wives of sailors would watch for their husband’s return. You’ll see the docks over there.” Pod continues, pointing further down the coastline. 

“How romantic,” a woman behind Jaime murmurs to her wife. 

“This house,” Pod says, heading down the stairs and cheerfully waving a hand to shoo them all along. “belongs to Selwyn Tarth, descendant of Duncan Tarth, also known as Duncan the Giant, an accomplished sailor and second in command of the HMS Wrath.” Pod gestures to a small portrait of the stern faced Duncan hanging over the fireplace. The little Dornish girl ‘oohs’ and claps her hands together. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaime sees Brienne hauling in buckets upon buckets of quahogs, oysters and steamers into the kitchen. Her biceps flex as she swings them onto the counter, and red-cheeked and dewy, she catches his eyes through the open doorway. She pushes a loose strand away from her face and raises her pale eyebrows at him. He cranes his head towards her as she goes back outside, suddenly disinterested in the tour. 

Pod continues. 

“Now poor Duncan died aboard the Wrath when a hurricane rolled in the night he was supposed to come home, leaving behind his wife Rohanne and his step children.” His voice lowers conspiratorially, and he leans towards the little girl. Pod wiggles his fingers at her, and she giggles, pressing her sharp chin into her dad’s shirt. 

“Some say Rohanne, called the Red Widow, can be heard crying at night. Some say they see her head of red hair rising from the beds in the cranberry bogs.” 

Jaime thinks it’s funny that his great grandmother sleeps among snapping turtles and cranberries. 

Then he remembers how Cersei used to swim in the summers, long and skinny like a ballerina, her blond head dipping under the water. She would pull him with her, all the way down to the rough, stone studded ocean floor while the waves pushed them back and forth. 

Cersei would say: “I’ll be a mermaid, and you’ll be my prince.” 

She’d laugh, then, and hand him a little conch shell when they dragged themselves back to Casterly Rock, bone-tired. 

“Listen,” she said, tilting her head closer to it. They both held their breath, waiting, shivering in the purple-grey dusk. Twin sand dollars, the both of them, shiny and golden. 

“Can you hear it? The ocean?” 

But Jaime couldn’t hear it, all he could hear was Cersei’s sharp inhale of anticipation, and her voice echoing back to him. 

Listen. Listen. Listen. 

Jaime suddenly doesn’t think it’s very funny at all. 

*** 

The tour moves on from Brienne’s house and Pod zig zags them expertly through fishermen carrying their catches of the day and families heading to the beach, cross stitching along the island. He points out his favorite local bookstore, the movie theater with the cushy seats and huge windows, the best place to get good lobster rolls without getting ripped off, the diner with the best eggs. They pass by the local high school and catch a bit of a lacrosse game, then move on. 

“Oh look!” Pod exclaims, once they hit the dock. Jaime thinks Pod’s beginning to get a bit lobster-y himself, and he smirks. A pontoon full of laughing tourists in orange lifejackets drifts by, and a trawler with circular windows cuts through the water to dock. 

“Tarth, obviously,” Pod says as they start to make the trek back to Evenfall, “has a long history of whaling, as well as being a harbor for boats traveling to the greater Stormlands. The north of the island is great for hiking…” 

When they finally get back to Evenfall, the girl is fast asleep in her dad’s arms, and even Jaime starts to drag his feet. Brienne sits on the front steps, her thick, muscled legs crossed one over the other as she shucks oysters. Jaime watches her gracefully slide the curved knife between the meat and the bottom shell over and over and over, watches her place the shucked oysters on a bed of ice. Pod makes small talk with her and Brienne grins at him, one of her front teeth pushed ever so slightly in front of the other. A red flush stains the back of her neck; she turns to squint at Jaime in the dying sun’s rays. 

Pod leaves, gliding away on a green bike, and it’s just him and Brienne. 

She angles her chin at him, and Jaime follows her inside, as she peels her gloves off and washes her hands. She wipes a damp washcloth over her forehead and neck; he tries not to lose his mind as a bead of water clings to the hollow of her neck. He swallows and rolls his shoulders back. Adjusts his posture. 

“You walked here, right?” Brienne breaks the silence, her eyes fixed on him steadily. 

“Yeah.” Jaime replies. 

She swipes her keys from the counter. 

“My truck’s in the garage; I’ll give you a ride.” 

Jaime tries to backtrack: “No, that’s all right; you don’t have to. I can walk.” 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to get a ride from Brienne; he does. But he can’t imagine any kind of scenario where it’s not awkward, where he’s on the top of his game, the way he is normally. Something about her, about the way she carries herself, throws him off. 

Brienne tosses her keys between her hands, looks at the floor. Her voice rasps a little, lilts in that funny Stormlands cadence. Up and down and up again.

“Are you sure? It’s gonna rain soon.” She looks pointedly out the window at the overcast sky, at the clouds inching together. 

Jaime’s legs protest at the prospect of walking; he’s tired, he’s hungry and he needs a shower. 

“Lead the way.” 

*** 

Droplets pound against the windows, and the wipers squeak irritatingly as they pass over the windshield. The engine sputters and groans with a decades-old weariness as Brienne takes them along uneven, muddy roads. Brienne is, apparently, the kind of person who can’t go anywhere without a mountain of power tools in the back of her dinged-up, candy apple Chevy. Her truck is abominably clean; the only thing in her cup holder is a reusable metal water bottle with a peeling sticker displaying a green logo. Too faded to read, but Jaime guesses that it would say something like: ‘fair trade not free trade!’ or ‘there’s no planet b!’ in thick, hefty lettering. 

Thunder rumbles and rolls over their heads. Lightning crackles in the distance, arcing in jagged lines over the horizon. Jaime traces the path of a droplet speeding down his window with his finger. Roy Orbison’s croon filters through the speakers in a tinny whine, compressing all the melancholy swoops of ‘Blue Bayou’ into a fuzzy drumbeat and the gritty squeal of a harmonica. 

Brienne taps her fingers to the beat as she drives, humming under her breath. 

“Where are you staying again?” She asks. 

“Sailor’s Haven. It’s a sweet, homey little place.” Jaime licks his lips. 

Brienne nods; her eyes flit over to meet his, before she turns her attention back to the patter of rain and the glow of low beams piercing the fog. 

‘Blue Bayou’ fades out, and Brienne looks at Jaime again. He presses his hand against the cool glass window. 

“Here for the summer?” She ventures, flicking her signals on and taking a left. 

“Think so.” He says, rubbing his shoulder. His knee comes up to rest near his chin. 

“Might be staying longer, actually.” Jaime continues. He huffs an exhale. He hadn’t thought about it, how long he was going to be here. Typical impulsive Jaime. 

Brienne nods again, and pulls into the parking lot of Sailor’s Haven. Jaime stretches his back, and gets out. 

“Thanks for the ride, Tunney.” 

“Brienne.” She corrects, a frown curling her mouth. Jaime leans against the car door and grins, making sure to show off his killer smile. Come on, he thinks, Come on. 

“Oh, I know,” Jaime says lightly. He thumbs his stubble. 

She rolls her eyes, and Jaime gets a thrill out of watching her big blues narrow at him. 

“Boxing’s not my thing, you know. Not even close.” She calls, rolling the window down after he’s turned to head into his room. 

Jaime laughs at that. 

*** 

When he gets into his room, he realizes he never bought a cover for his mirror.

He orders a pizza with fried eggplant and mushrooms from one of the places Pod recommended, stuffs a twenty dollar tip into the shirt pocket of the delivery boy just to see the look on his face. 

As he’s digging in, his phone rings, blaring through the drip-drip-drip outside: Tyrion’s calling. 

“Miss me already? Or have you just run out of books to read?” Jaime smiles. 

“Jaime, come home.” the voice over the line commands, ice-cold, and Jaime tries not to dry heave. 

“You’re done. You’ve made your point, drama queen.” Cersei sniffs imperiously. 

Jaime can almost see her, lounging on the right side of the bed in a burgundy lace teddy, nails freshly painted, sipping a glass of 2007 Sassicaia. 

Her nails tap impatiently against the glass over the line. 

“Surprised I took Quasimodo’s phone? You shouldn’t be.” 

Jaime can’t even breathe, much less speak. His blood rushes molten in his body, his ears ring. His hands shaking, the phone slides to the floor with a clatter. Jaime closes his eyes, and he sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. 

The glass clinks too-loudly against the night stand even through the static-buzzed reception he gets at Sailor’s Haven; Cersei’s resonant, clear voice cuts through everything, guts him neck to navel. 

“Your pathetic letter didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know other than that you’ve managed to miss every important thing I’ve ever said to you. Haven’t you gotten it through that thick skull yet? You are my blood, my body. You are me in every way that matters. You thought you could get away from me? If I am you, then you are me. How can you get away from you, Jaime? You came into the world with me, holding my foot—”

“Stop.” Jaime interjects, his hands clenched into fists. 

“— can’t believe you would leave me alone with our brother and our father. Fucking absurd, throwing a hissy fit like a five year old just because of Kettleblack, as if I even care about him at all. Jaime, you know that—”

His palms sting; his jaw aches. Jaime wonders if he’ll break teeth. 

Sweating and gasping like a fish for water, Jaime hangs up, turns his phone off and throws it into the nightstand drawer. 

He heads to the bathroom on shaky legs, shivering, and splashes his face with cold water. Lets it shock him. Jaime breathes slowly, in and out. In and out. He raises his head, catching his long lashes, his angular green eyes, his high cheekbones, his straight nose. His long blonde curls, just like Cersei. His sharp jawline, just like Cersei’s. 

Jaime’s fist crashes into it, spiderwebbing cracks from the middle of the mirror outward. Shards of glass slice between his fingers, bruise the tops of his knuckles. 

He leaves blood dripping from the frame. 

Jaime goes to bed, curling up under the covers, and he tries not to think about anything at all.


End file.
